Pyongyang International Film Festival

I suspect the common stereotype of North Korea’s cinema is one devoid of any creative or foreign input. Why not? After all, we hardly know anything about the world’s most recluse regime. Thus, I was struck with surprise when I discovered the Pyongyang International Film Festival. Yes, a film festival. This biennial international film festival is not infested with state-propaganda films but features actual foreign films. Like any other film festival, there are also prizes up for grabs. A crowd-pleaser in 2004 was “Bend It like Beckham,” which won the “Best Music” prize (I don’t particularly remember anything in the scoring worthy of an award of any kind).

But in reality, the Pyongyang International Film Festival is not like any other film festival. It goes against our imbedded prejudice of North Korea, the product of years of media, government and family brainwash. How can North Korea allow foreign cultural input? Is it a signal of gradual, real liberalization? A tool to rally international support? A litmus test for possible greater cultural exchanges in the near future? Nothing conclusive can be advanced at this point. But as we delve into the history of the Festival, we can observe a general trend of “opening up,” although it must be emphasized that this is speculative as best.

The Pyongyang Film Festival was first held in 1987, but was called the “Pyongyang Film Festival of the Non-aligned and Other Developing Countries.” Founded on the ideals of facilitating cultural exchange between nations of the non-aligned movement, the Festival featured documentaries and short films. These features were also judged for competitive awards. Since 1990, the Festival has been held regularly every other year. Admittedly, the first 10 years of the Festival was dominated by domestic and foreign themes of revolutionary resistance and leadership glorification. But the Festival injected new breadth in its selection in 2000, when officials screened Japanese films for the first time (six films by legendary Japanese director, Yoji Yamada). The subsequent festivals continued this trajectory of increased cultural breadth by displacing some of the revolutionary fervor with novel, “Western” themes that include the perils of adolescence and woman empowerment (Bend it like Beckham) and racism (Cry, The Beloved Country). Apparently, Whoopi Goldberg’s Serafina and Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 also made it into the list of “luminous” features.

What can we make of the Pyongyang International Film Festival? It is intriguing, that’s for sure. Compared to South Korea, the Pyongyang Festival was established almost 10 years before the Pusan International Festival. But of course, the quality divide between the two is no matter for debate. However, the trend of thematic expansion seemingly embraced by the Pyongyang Festival is worth looking into deeper. As emphasized earlier, the real intentions of the North Korean state is speculative at best. Our innate bias is to dismiss it as a tool of garnering favorable international opinion. Admittedly, there is state-exercised control over the featured films’ content. All films are dubbed in Korean, and according to journalist Ron Gluckman, are “adjusted” to ensure social propriety. Ideology control? Plausible, but a German filmmaker - who speaks Korean – dismisses the lost of content and nuances in the “adjusted” dubbing (“Slowly, Strangely, Pyongyang Changes.” Far Eastern Economic Review, vol. 168:4 (2005), Pg.46). Perhaps more importantly, the Pyongyang Festival is a publicly accessible event - not a hyper-exclusive event dripping with nauseating glamour (tsk tsk Cannes et. al.). Apparently, Festival tickets are being sold in many North Korean neighborhoods (http://www.gluckman.com/NKFilmFest.html).

Clearly, the dichotomy of real change vs. mere face-time will permeate discussions on this Festival. But one thing is clear – North Korea no longer fits comfortably into the stereotype of a hardcore Communist recluse devoid of any Western cultural breadth or accessibility.

- ARC